0:00 [Music] All right, everybody. Welcome back to a gnarly episode of the Careful Boys and we have Paul Gomez here with us. Yo, he knows everybody. He knows everybody in California. I have a question like from all the years um of you being involved in so many like different companies and all that. Were you ever a partner owner or like on that side of the table? Okay. Yeah, most most of the things I've always been a partner or an owner in. So, most of the things I'll do now is it's it's you got to either pay me a lot of money or I'll ownership or if I if I like you, I'll just do it. Oh, like cuz now you're more on the consulting side of things. Yeah. But even with like with Bart, it was like everything I did with Bart was just because I thought he was awesome and he
0:51 couldn't afford it for sure. No, actually you you have to look it's like what can you afford? It's like when you're when you have the opportunity to talk to people who know stuff. I really a really good thing for everyone here. When I was a teenager, I was in a room with a bunch of of really wealthy guys and um the guy I was with, he goes I was like, "Oh, dude, what kind of car? Oh, what kind of boat do you have? Oh, this." I was like, "Dude, no way you have a house there." I was like I was probably 19. I was like, "Dude, dude, that's so sick." Blah blah blah blah blah. And it was like, and after I was done, the guy who was who was I was with, he goes, "What'd you learn in that meeting?" Like, "Oh, that guy's got this car and that guy's this house and this guy's got that car." He goes, "Hey, next time shut up and listen." Mhm. He goes, "You could have learned so much business advice from them." And he goes, "You
1:41 were just asking them questions when you could have been quiet and just learned how to do something." And I was like, "Oh, I wish someone told me that at 19." Shoot. She taught me one of my biggest lessons and it was so funny. Um, so when we first started Borrower Gate Apparel, we were having trouble like crossing like the seven figure mark. So we were like high six figures and it was just a bunch of trying to figure ████ out, you know, like kind of like street fighting style. And then this is when Jacob introduced me to him. He came down to our office um back in downtown. And then uh he was like, "What's your number one bestseller?" And I was like, "Oh, we sell this thing called the Rebirth hoodie." And he goes, "Do you have that stocked in every size, every color?" And then I was like, "No way." I'm like, "We got to keep things ████ exclusive." So once we do it once, we we don't
2:31 release it ever again. And he goes, "Are you trying to make money?" And I was like, "Yeah." He goes, "Then why won't you have it stocked in every color and every size if that's your number one bestseller thing?" And it was like the most basic ████ in the world. I'm like, that's like In-N-Out going, "Let's stop with the hamburgers." Yeah. And that was the whole vanilla conversation where he would go like he goes, "What's your vanilla?" And I was like, he goes, "You have all these fancy ass flavors at BaskinRobins. The number one bestselling is vanilla. Second is chocolate." I always chocolate chocolate chip. Chocolate chip. And then Yeah. I always remember till this day like people want same but different or or different same. And I was just like, "Damn, that probably was stupid to cut off our best seller at like 200 pieces, huh?" Mhm. I'm like, "Damn, that was so dumb." Gio and Nike's 65% of their
3:21 business is the Air Force One last. Really? What? Chuck Taylor. Yeah. Converse. Converse 90%. Vans. Yeah. Those That's the bottom of those shoes called a last right. And so for me, I'm not even following my own thing. The reason when I did American traditional is I wanted to create concert tees for Americans. I wanted to collect make collectible TE's that don't last. So if you go in your closet, like I have old Mohead T-shirts, I have Iron Maiden T-shirts, I have all these t-shirts that I've had for years and they they stay forever. So now everybody's got a merch deal. So if you go to a truck stop, they have a deal. So if I'm buying the truck stop, if I'm in Bies in Florida and I'm in Bies in Arizona, same t-shirt. Yeah. But when I used back in the day, if I went to Bies in Florida, I get like a Bass shirt. And if I went to Chuckies Tuck um Bies in
4:11 Arizona, I get a shirt with a coyote on it. Oh. You know what I mean? So now it's all the same. So everyone has a merch deal. So to Bart's point, back then, you have to have your number one selling thing, right? And you want to keep it stocked and keep it stocked. So my friend owns Independent Trading Company. So Independent is like the number one fleecing. He has You go to his warehouse, 300,000 footware. He's got one whole wall that's like a Pez dispenser of black hoodies. Yeah. He just never runs out of black hoodies. What do you think about um the exclusive stuff like what Stuy does where they have just their Stuy and then Honolulu or whatever and they have their business model around we're only releasing this much today. It's a different Okay. Well, right. How long has Stuy been in business? I don't know. '9s '8s. Oh,
5:01 80s. Sean's Sean's a very famous Sean's a friend. Yeah. Sean's same era as Bob Durley. Sean was a surfboard shaper from Lagona Beach. Very good surfboard shaper. He was like he was into that whole like when everyone was into punk rock and then the clash broke off and started Big Audio Dynamite. He was into that kind of whole street thing. So if you look at that era in music like the first reggae collaboration was um Clash Sandinista right when they started that whole music punk rock collaboration started happening. So he kind of really lean leaned in street before anyone else did. And if you look at that stuff but the CCS never changes. So he's never gotten off his moniker. He just adds to that moniker. So it's like what Bart was saying, you have that susy vibe. Yeah. That you're super synonymous with, but then he'll put some sprinkles on her. He'll do this, he'll do that, and it'll
5:52 limit it out, right? So if let's just say we go to yogurt land, but he does have like 30 years of rapport or rapport. So he did that method first, but then he can do what he does now because he didn't start it like that. You have to pass that threshold. Yeah. cuz it's like barbell doing exclusive things and they're like, "We don't even know who the ████ you are." Yeah. So, here's a really good example. Decide who you want to be. So, if you look at Stacey, I have the utmost respect for Stacey and Sean hasn't been there for ever. And Frank Sinatra and his son run it now. Not the Frank Sinatra, but Frank Sinatra. Yeah, I thought that was funny. I thought it was the Frank Sinatra when I But the thing that's interesting about Stuy is Stucy is never trying to be the $100 million brand. They're not trying to be the 100, 200, 300. But once you start doing that stuff and like a lot of when
6:43 that that's what happened when we were at Hurley. I was like we started being a work 300 for you do things that you wouldn't normally do to hit that clientele. I see. So it's and those are things like that's why if you look at and the number one thing now that used that used to be the where brands broke is retail and now it's there's no MTV anymore. There's no and every everyone's their own brand. Everyone's their own persona, right? And when you look at that kind of stuff to answer your question, you want you want to have a northstar of what you want to do. So for me it's like this with American traditional my northstar God, family, country. I'm never going to waver from that Northstar. I'm never going to back off from from the First Amendment, the Second Amendment. I'm always going to have people's back. And you can argue with me. Like I had to on one thing. It's
7:33 just like people were snapping at me and I'm like, "Doesn't that feel good? You're embracing your freedom of speech." Like I love it. God bless you, man. That's awesome. Yeah. You couldn't do that anywhere else. People need to travel outside and see when they get that taken away. It's pretty gnarly. We're the only place in the world where you're um innocent till proven guilty, right? But I think with us being a part of two cultures, we see and it's fresh and a lot of our parents came ran away from communist or whatever and then they're like, we see it. Mhm. But then people that were American for so long, I don't think they even know what it's like. My parents spoke Spanish and I don't cuz it was my parents didn't want me to speak Spanish. Yeah. They It just like you're going to we're here. Embrace where you're at. Like and you have to have respect for everywhere you go. Like if you when you go to Japan or you go to
8:24 a The thing I love about going to Asian countries, it's so freaking excited you're there and they want to share their culture with you. They want to they want to embody what you're doing. Like when I go to Japan and I buy something, I'm like I always tell them, "Don't wrap it. Don't package it." They package like 20 things on top. Oh, dude. But they make it so perfect, right? Like it's just you don't even want to open it no He's looking you're like, "Dude, that thing's so awesome. I don't want to open that, right?" Like, I don't want to open that. It's so It's that It's seriously an art. Yeah. During Christmas, a lot of the department stores have a packaging area. You can get it done. But the way they wrap it is like, man, it's like they'll put a box and then they'll put like a thing over it and another box and a ribbon and it's like perfectly cuz everyone grows up doing origami out there. So they fold it all perfect and
9:14 you're just like, "Dang, this is crazy. It's the best." Yeah. Package design is wild out there. Well, that's a whole another thing. It's brand. Yeah. Why is Tiffany, it's the way they package. M, right? In-N-Out's rad. Cuz In-N-Out's like old school burger style. Mhm. Like McDonald's when they You have to look at this is one of like a lot of things I love to share because I I geek out on this kind of stuff. McDonald's was like the number one restaurant, right? And then McDonald's franchises dropped way off and they went down and they started going. Do you know why McDonald's started failing? Dirty bathrooms. Really? Dirty bathrooms. Cuz it was like when I was a kid, I would go to McDonald's. My parents would take me McDonald's. It was like go and have like eat in. Yeah. They wanted you to eat in, right? And then it was like it was a whole bit like and my granddaughter still likes to go to
10:04 McDonald's. Like she loves a cheeseburger, right? But then you would go there and the bathrooms were dirty and people go, "Oh, I don't want to take my family here. The bathrooms are dirty." And it became more of a drive-thru spot. Yeah. It It killed. Was the food the same when you're still the same anywhere I go in the world? Yeah. Anywhere. It tastes the same except you get rice in Japan. Yeah. Like when it Yeah. It's funny. You get rice in Japan. You And you get poutine when you're in Canada. McDonald McDonald's in Vietnam. Still some of the best McDonald's I ever had though. Their chicken was chicken nuggets were like chicken. Yeah. If you look at right now, it's like we dumb everything down. Like it's it's so gnarly what we do. Like when you go to Japan and you eat like horse tastes really good. That's what everyone says. I haven't got to try it. Horse is super good. Like here's but we would never eat a horse, right? Cuz we ride them here. We torture them here.
10:56 What other questions? I like questions. questions or my out of all like the people that you've worked with or met through like your journey and stuff like who's somebody that like you were hella like looking up to or like learned from a lot from and stuff? Um Tom Clark at Nike. Uh Bob Hurley for sure, Tom Wallally. Um who else? Like what are the things that they instilled in you? Tom Wally. Never let money change you. That was the most important. What did Tom Wallally do? Tom Molly's was the founder of Intercope Records. Oh, he's the guy you said that worked at Warner and then as a mail room kid when started Intercope worked with Tup worked with everything and that's when when when that whole thing happened with Nike and Warner and having to do the thing and I he told him money he he sat me down he goes don't let money change you money
11:46 changes people and and as much as you don't want to let it change you it it it's like I wouldn't bought my wife the most expensive Mercedes you know I built a crazy house. Thank god. I mean, I sold it and made a lot of money on it, but like at one point I had the dumbest house on the planet. What was so dumb about it? Cuz it was dumb. It was like I had I was on I was on I was on an acre on PCH. An acre an acre on Pacific Coast Highway in a 5,000t ranch house that I built from the ground up. And how often are you there? I had sold it and I'm not there at all cuz one of my kids moved out. I'm like, I have this big gigantic dumb house and it's and and I learned this. Oh, dude, that's your dream house. I go, "No, bro. It's your dream house. It's my reality house." None of that. None of that stuff brings you any happiness. As much as you think like, "Oh, like people go, "Why don't you drive a Raptor?" I
12:36 go, "Cuz I go to Mexico and I want my car to come home with me." I don't have any stickers on my truck. I take all the four-wheel drive, all of it off. It's just a B. It looks like a work truck. Cuz I go I drive deep in the Baja to go surfing. You get stopped if you have a Raptor. No, dude. The Ford F250 ain't coming back. Those the cartels love those cars. such big fans of Raptor. But it's like you look at, okay, I'm I'm going to drive a a race car in California. Why? I can't drive it. Yeah. Right. I had an old business partner of mine. He was like, I would buy property and he would buy a a McLaren. And I'm like, dude, what? Why? I I don't. He's like, oh, dude, want to go for a ride in my car? normal. Oh, I my friend got like a convertible Mercedes one day and he came home and I'm like, "Dude, I think they make that
13:26 in a man's version." He got all bummed and took it back. Got a saved his life probably, but it's like Yeah, it's it's so mentors. Bart's a mentor. No way. Joseph Paul. You mention all of us. Yeah. We're getting races, huh? What do you call Mexicans? Two Mexicans playing basketball. Oneon-one. One on one. No, but like if I look at like if I look at what what I see mentors in everybody because it's what it's what their hustle is, right? I was on I was on a documentary and it's like somebody goes, "What do you do when you get to the top?" I go, do you fall? I don't ever want to be at the top. Like I
14:16 want like when the really good thing, the blessing that Bob Hurley did to everybody is when we sold Hurley, everyone got paid. Everybody got paid. Like Chris Malloy, famous filmmaker, he's I got my film company started because Bob Hurley paid me. I bought my ranch cuz Bob because these guys paid me. Everyone got a start cuz we gave them money. So they weren't um partners, but when he got a check, he was just cutting them out. Sold the company. Oh, everyone got paid because we would have never pulled it off without everybody and and everyone got paid. I don't think anyone walked away with less than 100 grand. It's team effort. So cool. For sure. That's super nice. Yeah. But then I've been at companies where people have sold the company for $800 million and everyone had to sue them to get paid. So after the exit, like y'all got liquid, but you stayed on board for a little bit, right? I stayed on board for 11 years cuz that was a part of the package. You normally
15:07 get fired. That's what I told you in that. I think it's like I told you this. Yep. Shut your mouth. The 90 days thing. Yeah. Normally 90 is 120 when you you get pieced out cuz they at Nike I I have a lot of respect for Nike like that. I learned I learned a lot. Like that was my master's degree. I learned a lot. Like when you go, okay, let's say your budget, right? Let's just say your budget for this show is $2 million. Okay. It's killer. Okay. I'm going to invest your show now. budget's 20 million. It's already awesome. What do I do with the 20 million? Yeah. Got to crank it up cuz you want a bigger return than that. But that's the point. So when I when when I had my marketing budget, it would be like, okay, here's this number. Let's just say it's $70 million as a marketing budget. And you go, okay. And they go, okay, we're going to do this now. Your marketing budget's
15:58 $700 million. How do you even spend that? That's my point. Oh. So you you have to look at like those are things where it gets crazy. And so when I I call it Nike PTSD and cuz my son when I left and my son came started working for me, he's like, "Okay, what's the budget?" I'm all, "What budget?" He's like, "Well, what's the money to do this?" I'm all It's called Get Rad. Get rad. Well, how are we going to do this? Get rad. Like, if it's good, you know, you know how much money I've spent on this t-shirts. Sending it to guys like Bart. Send it to my friends and hope they wear it. Yeah. Right. It's like, and that was rad back then because like if anytime Bart or you guys do something, I I always repost for my friends. I want to see everyone blow up. And that's how the American tradition started. It was It was like three years ago. You still follow the old one. Oh, do I? Yeah. Cuz the old ones were is it
16:48 started with I was all my friends had companies and I would just go on there and promote them. Try and blow them up. Try and blow them up. Try cuz it's Dude, it's it's not easy. And it's like to Bart's point where you look at you kind of go. It's just people just want the same thing, right? It's like ketchup's ketchup. Mhm. Well, there's a reason a Kleenex is a Kleenex, but it's actually a tissue. Mhm. But they market it so well. I never have walked in a restaurant and said, "Can I have a Pepsi?" I'd like to shoot myself. [Laughter] I used to be a Pepsi guy to a bar converted me cuz he sold me on and he said, "You got to get the Coke with the ice to the top." And I was like, "Are you sure?" And then he he like he's such a fan for McDonald's Coke when we were on a trip to like the best story. So we
17:39 were in Illinois and then he was telling everybody there, "Let's go to McDonald's and get the Coke." And one other guy was like, "Yes, I've been saying this for years." So we went like in the middle of the night to McDonald's and all of us got Coke at McDonald's just drinking it and going like, "Wow, this is so good." From that point on, like he converted me. It's the best. Okay. So, Mark Hoppers from Blink182 will only drink Diet Coke from McDonald's. Okay. Do you guys know why McDonald's Coke is so good in Diet Coke? What? Don't they have a special Do they have a special relationship with Coke where they just have like their own version? The straw. Their lines are refrigerated. Oh, the lines are the lines of soda ghost. That's why it tastes so cold. Only for Coke. Only for their all their sodas, their lines are refrigerated. So, it's not that makes that big of a difference. Oh yeah, 100%. You ever I used to work
18:30 at a fast food restaurant and you see like their soda machine all ████ up. Their lines are refrigerated. So So when it comes out from their thing, it comes whether you have ice, it's already cold. Wow. So when it comes into the ice, it's super cold cuz it tastes more refreshing. And we were like sitting there going, man, why is it so much? It is different. So it's not a recipe thing, it's a temperature thing. It's a temperature thing. Wow. So the rumor is everyone says McDonald's has their own Coke restaurants. Well, that's what that's what heard. My friend owns 10. The guy who's with me, the guy who's holding my head in that picture, he owns like 12 McDonald's and I'm always I always hit him up. I'm like, "Dude, what about this? We're on this Mexico." I don't know the recipe, but kind of like you said, like if you're and you have dyslexic vision, then you have vision in other places. And I can tell the McDonald's Coke is way better than you. So it's it's 100% That's my superpower.
19:20 Hey.
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